Am I the only one who learned something from this? Sure, there isn't much you can do 'over the internet' for someone - but you can do your best to figure out who they are and try to contact someone who cares and CAN do something. And everyone is eager to pat themselves on the back for what they did - hell, I do it myself to keep the guilt at bay for NOT doing ENOUGH.

People simplify the problem to 'he wanted to do it so it's ok' or 'there was nothing we could do' but that just isn't true. This could have been prevented, and Fart could have gotten counseling, treatment, or whatever he needed to not feel like this was the only option. Period. I hope that if any of you see warning signs like these again, you know to recognize them for what they are - *warning signs* not vacant or idle threats.

All of the mutual-flammage aside, I think Boro's was the most thoughtful and heartfealt of all of the posts in this forum. He expressed his conflicting feelings, rather than jumping to simplistic conclusions.

Mourn him, yes, but learn something from this or his death is pointless.

its weird but there is a certain 'communication' that is felt through 1x1 in winbolo that cant be expressed with words or any other medium exactly.

the best way i can describe it is when in a pill war and you are doing fakes with your lgm, timing your sends and rebuilds, timing your refuel times, and then anticipating opponents lgms as well as anticipating your opponents anticipation. also stuff like trying to make educated guesses on where they are trying to get to next, how exhausted their resources are compared to yours, and so on. it all uses the same sorta skill

and when you get caught and lose momentum or you catch them and gain the upper hand, thats when im like 'you got in my head you son of a bitch. good job sir' or 'i read your mind bitch' and thats my favorite part of it. the mind game aspect

The key here is well this is the internet, and we like to think that we all knew fart, and we did in a sense, but we all knew "internet" persona fart. Only the people who knew him in real life can say that they really knew fart. People say, do and talk about crazy stuff on the internet all the time, and sometimes you just have to take it with a grain of salt, in this case sometimes you don't. I applaud the people the who saw some signs, and tried to do something about it. I most of all deeply regret that this in fact wasn't a case of someone was just bsing over the internet and a life was taken.

To reiterate: I have missed and will miss the internet persona of fart, the fart I knew in bolo and irc, no matter what handle he used. I never got to know the real fart, and I'm sorry that I didn't as maybe I could have tried to help in someway if I thought some of the things he may have said and some of the handles he may have used was a subtle key to an underlying problem. I mean we change names all the time. They all don't have a deep meaning that needs to be investigated. Hell, I'd like to think that I'm not the spawn of the devil, and so on and so on, but again I regret that in this case it apparently did. People come on the internet sometimes to escape their real lives, and going so far as to even pretending to be a different gender, age, race, or whatever. It happens everyday, and we can't decipher them all and get the truth that lies beneath.

I agree with der in that the people who knew fart in anyway should mourn his loss if they wish, and we hopefully have learned something from this, and that is things are not always what they seem especially on the web. I say that cause fart was always happy and go lucky to me and with me on irc and in games. He never seemed depressed, sad or angry. To hear about this tragic event happened was nothing less than a shock to me. I saw lots of his nick changes as well as others, and I never thought twice that they are/were a cry for help or a hint towards anything. Like I said even I have used different nicks/handles from snapdragon to killerloop to stewie to devilspawn and many others, but when I sign off the internet I'm me and will always be me, some of you only know devilspawn, and some of you know both. I wish I knew both fart and Chris...

We miss you man...

Last edited by †DS† on Tue Aug 15, 2017 9:39 pm; edited 1 time in total

Well goll-y; If we can give this much attention to some kid who died of stupidity then imagine how much we can give to those who died while doing something worthwhile (like our troops) or even all those who are murdered in our communities each year.

Well goll-y; If we can give this much attention to some kid who died of stupidity then imagine how much we can give to those who died while doing something worthwhile (like our troops) or even all those who are murdered in our communities each year.

Died of depression, cro, not stupidity. And I won't even begin to get into whether what 'our troops' are doing is 'worthwhile,' though I do feel sorry for the undereducated and underprivledged kids the government is targeting in their recruitment campaigns, who become convinced they should give their lives in for an at-best dubious cause. I do mourn them, too, but they are victims of bad decisions as much as fart, sorry. But if you really wanna stomp on a stranger's grave, well, I can't stop you.

As for the 'real' vs. 'internet' fart, it is an interesting point, and I agree - we didn't know the 'same' fart that his family knew. Stilll, after his death those closest to him 'physically' thought it was an accident, and only a handful of obscure winboloers knew it was suicide, so, in a way, he was more open and 'real' with us 'online' than he was at home. I mourn the nice, friendly, funny unassuming boloer who was always up for a challenge and talked far less shit than most boloers (me included), and though we couldn't have known he was serious, I wish we had acted as though we had known ... better safe than sorry.

I will just remind ya'll tho that it wasn't just his nicknames ... he told a number of players that he was going to do this, and announced it often in 'public' in games. He explained how he was going to do it, too. And then did it. Sure, we couldn't have known ... but it isn't as if his nicknames were the only sign of it either.

Anyway, we can't stop kids from deciding to side with Bush about a stupid war, we can't stop every random act of violence and cold-blooded pre-meditated murder, but we can help folks who are depressed seek help.